The Pursuit of Harpyness » Pay Equityhttp://www.harpyness.com
As narrated by the most charming and vicious women on the internetSat, 29 Sep 2012 11:37:30 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.8.9Dear American Women: The GOP Wants You To Stay Underpaidhttp://www.harpyness.com/2012/06/07/dear-american-women-the-gop-wants-you-to-stay-underpaid/
http://www.harpyness.com/2012/06/07/dear-american-women-the-gop-wants-you-to-stay-underpaid/#commentsThu, 07 Jun 2012 23:15:43 +0000http://www.harpyness.com/?p=22413This week Republicans in the US Senate voted—not the first time—to kill a proposed law that would have enabled women to more easily sue the employers who pay them less than men. The bill would have extended the protections of the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which President Obama signed into law shortly after he was elected. The Ledbetter Act adjusted the statute of limitations on equal pay lawsuits so that women weren’t prevented from suing if they discovered after the fact that they’d been deliberately underpaid by their employers. The bill that the Senate killed on Tuesday would have barred companies from retaliating against workers who inquire about pay disparities and clear the way for female employees to sue for punitive damages in cases of paycheck discrimination. In 2010, the same bill failed a procedural vote in the Senate when no Republican supported it.

Why the fuck would anyone want to vote against helping women achieve pay equity? The Senate Republicans’ central complaint was that the bill would create litigation and potentially onerous compliance issues for small businesses. Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA) called bullshit on this: “Where are these women supposed to go? What are they supposed to do? Have an appointment with their congressman? Show the congressman their paycheck?”

The truth is, Republicans want to keep women from having legal recourse when they’re the victims of pay discrimination. GOP politicians can claim that it’s about protecting businesses from lawsuits but that’s merely a scare tactic which comes in handy in an overly litigious country where people are terrified of being sued. Our economy does not suffer as a result of frivolous multi-billion dollar discrimination suits. In fact, a lot of legal action concerning pay inequity is not pursued by ambulance-chasing shysters but by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission—a branch of the federal government which enforces laws against workplace discrimination. The EEOC is not in the business of filing frivolous suits. The truth is, the vast majority of these lawsuits are warranted because businesses do discriminate against female employees. For proof, look no further than the well-documented and indisputable fact that in annual earnings, working women make about only 77 cents for every dollar men make.

Simply put, employers underpay women and have done so for as long as American women have been earning a wage. Pay inequity is an indisputable fact, and the only way to combat it is through legal means. By making it harder for women to sue over equal pay, Republicans are defending is the right of business owners and corporations to exploit and discriminate against female employees.

This isn’t a huge surprise, as helping businesses do whatever the fuck they want with precious little regard for ethics is the reality behind a lot of Republican “pro-business” agendas, including why they’re so virulently anti-union. It really sucks for big business when they are forced to quit exploiting their workers, so it follows that if you’re a politician who’s firmly in the pocket of big business, you’re going to try to find as many ways for them to increase profits, including by underpaying women.

It’s no coincidence that this is taking place as Republicans are running a presidential candidate who is the best poster boy for big business that this country has ever seen. Or that Obama’s donations from big business are suffering compared to when he ran in 2008. Standing up for working people and pushing big business to pay them fairly is going to create blowback from the guys at the top (and yes, they’re almost exclusively guys). But by continuing to vote against the interests of women, the Senate Republicans are also continuing to widen Obama’s lead over Romney with women voters, which currently stands at over 10%. Keep digging that hole, Republicans.

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http://www.harpyness.com/2012/06/07/dear-american-women-the-gop-wants-you-to-stay-underpaid/feed/0If You Liked It Then You Should Have Put a Raise On It: On Being Underpaidhttp://www.harpyness.com/2009/08/26/if-you-liked-it-then-you-should-have-put-a-raise-on-it-on-being-underpaid/
http://www.harpyness.com/2009/08/26/if-you-liked-it-then-you-should-have-put-a-raise-on-it-on-being-underpaid/#commentsWed, 26 Aug 2009 15:00:48 +0000http://www.harpyness.com/?p=9703

Don't be afraid to get yours. Via Tracy O @ Flickr.

Last week in the thread for my Best Boss Ever post commenter Plum-Pie noted that she and her sister had been discussing the issue of women in the workplace, and: “Basically, we concluded, that as women are socialised to be risk averse and ‘grateful’ (blech!) and not to ask for things unless they are 100% sure they deserve them.” I had actually been working on this post when she made that comment, but it was great confirmation of what I’d been trying to say (thanks, Plum-Pie!)

I work in a business where two people can have the same title but considerable spread between their salaries (say, $60,000 vs. $100,000). Some of the spread has to do with experience, but much of it has to do with moving around. If you change companies every four years or so, you’ll get around a 30% raise each time, which all piles up quite nicely. If, however, you remain loyal to a company, as I did, you’re likely to get small incremental raises–5-8%–over the years, which simply don’t add up to a big payoff.

This was the case at my last job, where I started out as a 21 year old assistant. Eight years later I’d been promoted several times and had done several deals that brought my employers a LOT of money, enough that I was given a special “Employee Excellence” Award with the president of the company toasting me in a prepared speech.

I should point out here that I work in a female-dominated business, and both the president of the company and my direct boss were women. So were most of my colleagues. This wasn’t a case of out-and-out gender pay disparity. But gender definitely played into it.

You see, as Plum-Pie and her sister rightly noted, women are taught to be modest and risk-averse. We’re not supposed to toot our own horns or stride boldly into the boss’s office and demand a raise, even if we earned it. Instead, we’re supposed to be grateful for what we get, and not to overreach. So if the boss treats us well–as my bosses did–we think we should be pleased about it, even if we’re not making good money. Men would see the glass as half empty: Hey, I like this place but they’re not paying me what I’m worth! Women see it as half full: I’m not making as much as I could, but it’s okay because I like working here.

That was me, for a long time. But eventually, I started waking up to the fact that I was leaving money on the table, and if my salary didn’t go up, I’d be leaving money on the table for the rest of my life.

You see, every salary you get is based on the one before. If you have a dismal salary history–like I did–it could take you years, if not decades, to catch up. I eventually realized that I could be losing hundreds of thousands of dollars over the course of my career if I stayed at the company that was underpaying me. That missing money could be a lost house, a lost college education for my children, or lost retirement funds.

That knowledge was ultimately what shook me out of my complacency. I had to change things–I needed to get paid what I was worth, or I might establish a precedent that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

I started by putting together a P&L of all the projects I’d worked on, showing how much money they’d made. I did some research in industry publications and on-line (I recommend glassdoor.com for this) and found out what the typical base pay for my position was. I requested a promotion and a raise that would bring me in line with both the base salary I should have been earning, and with what my colleagues were earning (most of them had many more years experience than I did, so I requested a little less based on that). I did a write-up of all this and gave it to my boss at my next evaluation. I was polite and respectful, but firm. This needed to happen, I told them. It was a reasonable request, based entirely on research and solid numbers.

So now I’m going to talk about those numbers. Although I don’t use my real name on this website, I am not hiding behind my anonymity in this case. Believe me, I would talk about my salary in public if we were sitting in a room together because I believe very strongly that the reluctance to discuss money is a big part of the reason women get screwed in the workplace. Women are strongly discouraged from thinking of their work in terms of cold, hard cash. Talking about money is tacky, we’re told, and besides, there are all sorts of intangibles–like quality of life, and getting along with your managers and colleagues–that matter more. I believe those things are important, of course, and they do factor into any decision I make about my job.

But the truth is that numbers matter. They certainly matter to your employer. I guarantee your bosses know exactly what you make and what your work is worth, even if you don’t discuss it. The first step to not getting screwed is to know what your skills are worth on the open market. To do that, you have to reduce the value of your work to a dollar figure. If this makes you uncomfortable, get over it. This is your financial security we’re talking about.

For the sake of illustration–and because I ain’t ‘shamed to talk about money–here is an example. It’s my own salary history:

My starting salary was $20,000, a flat rate paid to all entry-level employees at my company. (I have a B.A. from a top-tier public university and professional certification from an Ivy League school.)

At the end of four years, having been promoted twice, I was making $35,000. The average industry salary for someone with my responsibilities was a little higher– about $38,000-40,000. Already, I was falling behind.

At the end of eight years, having been promoted once more, and having made the company significant profits by bringing in as much business as someone at the senior level (a promotion away). I was only making $50,000. The mean pay for my job title started at $55,000, according to industry publications, but I’d been in the job for three years already. I should have been making at least $60,000. I was earning about 20% less than I should have.

Also: had the company hired someone from outside with a track record like mine, they would have had to pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $70,000-$80,000.

Once I crunched the numbers, I realized I needed to make at least $70,000 a year to bring my salary in line with the market value of my work.

Even my colleagues who’d brought in less money were making 20-30% more than me, mainly because they had been hired from outside. I, on the other hand, was young, home-grown, and hadn’t had a big jump in salary by switching companies. I’d paid what I call the Loyalty Penalty.

Why did I pay it? Because I was ignorant of my real value to the company, and had gotten complacent because liked my job (particularly working for the best female boss ever). My employers certainly took advantage of both things, giving me promotions without raises, or piddly single-digit raises. The company saved money by underpaying me, and they thought it was a win-win for them. For years, I proved them right.

My bid for a promotion and a raise was favorably received, and I was told that I would get a 15% raise, for starters, and a promotion that would go into effect in the next fiscal quarter. But when that quarter rolled around, I noticed that my paycheck didn’t change. There was no discussion of a forthcoming promotion. There was nothing. Despite the promises, the appointed time rolled around and…crickets. That same month, my excellent boss went on maternity leave, which meant that if this issue was going to be tackled, it wouldn’t be tackled for at least three months, at which point I would probably be put off until the following quarter–six months away. I was facing another half a year of being underpaid.

I was livid about the broken promises. But in reality, my employers were doing me a favor, because anger is a great motivator, and it gave me the kick in the ass I needed. I called around and found out who was hiring. I cold-called the head of a rival company and met him for breakfast three days later. That was a Monday. I met his deputy on Tuesday. I was up front with both of them: I wanted $70,000 a year, and if they offered it to me, I would accept it and not try to negotiate a better deal with my current employer (which is typical in my industry–people often try to get employers into bidding wars, which can be very risky). On Wednesday they offered me a job with a promotion and the $70,000 a year I wanted. I accepted immediately.

I gave notice to my boss’s boss, a guy I had known for eight years and never particularly liked, and who I suspected was part of why I had been stymied in getting the promised raise. I simply announced, “I’ve been offered a job elsewhere and I’ve accepted. I can give you three weeks’ notice.”

He looked stunned, as though it had never occurred to him that someone who’d been at one place for eight years and been underpaid for most of them might actually look for another job.

“You don’t want a counter-offer?” he asked.

“No.” I told him, “I was promised a raise and a promotion this quarter and I didn’t get it, so I found a job with better pay.”

About an hour later I was called into the office of the Boss Lady, the head of our entire division. I’d always gotten along well with her, and she was also the ultimate numbers person, so she undoubtedly knew why I was leaving. The moment I sat down, she leaned forward, looked me in the eye and said, “Just tell me it’s not about the money.”

I was stunned. I wanted to yell “Of course it’s about the money, you moron!”

But I was determined to get out of there without burning bridges–it’s a small world. She’d just told me what she wanted to hear, so I let her hear it.

“No, it’s about the opportunity,” I answered. Which was true–it was about the opportunity to finally make the money I deserved. I then made some noises about how I’d had a good eight years, and thanks for all the support, but I needed to move on.

I don’t think she believed it, but I got out of there in one piece and that was all that mattered.

I’ve been at my new job for four years. I now make $93,000 a year. I’m finally exactly where I should be on the pay scale, and I’m very happy with my boss and working environment too.

My point here, fellow harpies, is that it’s very easy to look at that glass half full and let yourself be underpaid. It’s much easier to say “Well, at least I have a job…” or “It’s not much money, but I like it…” The Patriarchy has conditioned women not to talk about money or deliver ultimatums, or to advocate loudly for ourselves (and, if absolutely necessary, be a bitch when you aren’t getting what you deserve). The pressure can be so subtle that you don’t notice it but it’s persistant, and it takes effort to shake off that conditioning. But if this is happening to you, please, please go for yours. No one else will do it for you, and your future as well as your present depends on it.